


Hello, Goodbye

by Yotsubadancesintherain5



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 03:11:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13378905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yotsubadancesintherain5/pseuds/Yotsubadancesintherain5
Summary: Coco had one question when she was very young, and it took all her courage to ask.





	Hello, Goodbye

Coco lightly held the sleeve of her mother's dress as they perused the stalls. She had turned seven years old a little while ago, and she was chewing on her thumb. The stall keepers knew her and her mother, and often doted on her when her mother stopped at one. They would call Coco a sweet, calm child and place a piece of candy in her tiny, soft hands. Her mother would come here for supplies, and already Coco was becoming well-acquainted with the smell of shoe polish or the metal smell of nails.

Today, she reflected on somebody she wasn't supposed to mention to her mother, but the worry started to seep into her. Coco couldn't remember her father, at least in a concrete way. She remembered broad shoulders and dark hair; kind, loving eyes and a lullaby. She kept his voice alive by reading his letters to her, hidden away. But everything else was becoming muddled.

When her mother was locked in a fiery battle of bartering with a stall owner that sold tacks, Coco breathed and closed her hands into fists once, before letting them relax. 

"Mamá," she said, stronger than she thought. Her mother looked down at her, her face relaxing into a smile.

"Yes?"

"What does papá look like?" Coco asked, her words rushed and almost jumbled. She stilled herself, already knowing the answer: "We don't speak of him."

Though her mother's face twisted at the thought of that man, she looked around. The stall owner she was previously arguing with bowed his head out of her sight.

Her mother set her sights on a piece of paper tacked to the wood of another stall. She took it off and showed it to Coco. It was an advertisement, a mariachi band that wanted another member. The mariachi in the picture smiled brightly, holding up a trumpet like it was a trophy.

"He looks like this," her mother said. She jabbed her finger against the paper mariachi's cheek, and looked like she wanted to crumple up the paper. But she returned it to the other stall and resumed in her bartering.

Coco carefully slipped away and took down the paper, discreetly folding it over and over until it couldn't fold anymore. She shoved it down into her sock, and tried to look like she hadn't done anything. It worked, as the day passed on normally.

Coco looked at the paper when she was alone, examining the paper by the moonlight. The man in the picture wasn't quite right - his hair looked lighter, and he looked much skinnier than what Coco remembered of her father. But she let the picture merge with what her memory of her father looked like; it was a cobbled together image but Coco felt better. She kept the paper until it yellowed and eventually withered away.

Years later, when her mother passed away, Coco found the piece of photo that was ripped away. It was in her mother's belongings, shoved away, and Coco's hands shook when she realized what she was looking at; her cobbled image burned away. She wondered what she should do with the scrap of photo. She found, like her mother, that she couldn't bear to throw it away, and she kept it safe.

Even if her family clung to the rule, Coco wouldn't forget her father.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by one of Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias' jokes in his stand-up. His family situation is fairly similar to the one in Coco; in one special he recounts the time he asked his mother, "What does my dad look like?" She picked up a Tapatío bottle and exclaimed, "He looks like this! ... Ah, that's funny, huh, that's funny!"  
> It's one of my favorite jokes. 
> 
> Title refers to the title of a Vocaloid song by Scop and Matsutori. It seemed appropriate.


End file.
